Yearly Archives: 2016

An upgrade to Koha version 16.05.05 has occurred for all Koha for Schools clients. The upgrade was applied overnight on 15 November 2016.

Koha 16.05 was first released in May 2016. Koha 16.05.05 is the fifth monthly maintenance release in the series.

This release includes exciting new features and numerous minor improvements. Key new features include:

Forgotten password assistance when logging into OPAC;
Video streaming from YouTube;
Automatic item modification by age allowing items to automatically lose new status;
Greater control over maximum fine settings;
Ability to pay fees and fines from OPAC using PayPal.

All Koha for Schools clients are now running Koha version 3.22.10. A Koha security upgrade was provided overnight on 1 September 2016.

The developers of Koha are continuously working to ensure the software is as secure as possible. Koha 3.22.10 is a Security Release of Koha which provides patches for one potential of a privacy breach and several cross scripting vulnerabilities. Read the Release Notes here.

Koha for Schools will always apply security releases of Koha as soon as possible following their release.

More generally, our upgrade policy is that we run approximately 6 months behind the head of the project. In this way we ensure that schools receive frequent updates to the latest features and improvements, whilst ensuring the software we provide is stable and robust. The Koha project has two major feature releases every year, in May and November. Every other month there is a maintenance release. Koha for Schools allows each major feature release to mature through at least several maintenance releases before applying an upgrade. Upgrades generally have no impact on users. New features are controlled by system preferences and can be turned on if and when each library wishes to use the feature.

Contact us with any questions about the deployment of your Koha for Schools product.

What is Koha?

Koha is the world’s most widely installed library management system. National, academic, school, public and special libraries on every continent use Koha.* Koha supports almost any workflow due to an extensive array of system preferences. Therefore it will scale, from the smallest private collections to the very largest libraries. For example, Koha runs the entire public library system of Turkey with over 12 million items in a single Koha instance. That’s flexibility! Koha is free and open source software, developed and maintained by a world-wide community of librarians and information technology professionals. The project’s values of collaboration and learning align with those of the school’s sector.

What is Koha for Schools?

Koha for Schools is a standard configuration of Koha hosted in the cloud. Australia’s longest established Koha support company, Calyx, provides the hosting and support for Koha for Schools. Our team has pre-configured Koha in a manner typically useful for Australian schools. Your Koha will work ‘out of the box’ on the day it is deployed, however you are able to further refine the configuration if you wish.

How will Koha for Schools benefit our library?

In launching Koha for Schools, Calyx’ CEO Irma Birchall said, “We’ve been involved in the Koha project since 2003. Koha just keeps on getting better and better. And we grow more and more excited by the opportunity it provides to libraries. We’ve known for some time there is a need in the school’s sector for a modern, fully featured ILS that is flexible, robust, integrates readily with other systems and technologies and is easy to use. This configuration of Koha and this package of services will enable Australian schools to gain the power of Koha at a fraction of the cost of comparable systems. We’re genuinely excited to make it available.”

* Australian Bureau of Meteorology scientists in Antarctica access the Bureau’s Koha library in Melbourne via their virtual private network. So yes, Koha is used on every continent on the planet. Awesome!